Drafted — not technically validated
Record revision 1 · The UAE Air Force's Western Air Command base, home to its F-16E/Fs and Mirage 2000-9s, the USAF's 380th Air Expeditionary Wing and French Rafales.
A real-world airfield as described in public sources, and how sim maps represent it. Units, facilities and names change; each is dated where the sources allow, and the charts are not for navigation. Use current official publications for flight planning.
Location and identity
- Location
- South of Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates [1]
- Country or territory
- United Arab Emirates
- Coordinates
- 24.2482° N, 54.5477° E [2]
- Identifiers
- ICAO OMAM · IATA DHF
- Other names
- ADAB [1]
- Opened
- built in 1983 [1]
- Theatre
- Middle East
Role and operators
- Status
- Active · Military
- Roles today
- Fighter and strike · Reconnaissance and surveillance · Airlift and tanker · Command headquarters
- Operators
- United Arab Emirates Air Force, headquarters of its Western Air Command · United Arab Emirates, air force · as of Oct 2026 [1]
- US Air Force, a presence from the early 1990s, officially acknowledged in August 2017 · United States, air force · as of Oct 2026 [1]
- French Air and Space Force, its own settlement in the north-west corner, named Lieutenant-Colonel Charles Pijeaud Air Base · France, air force · since Sep 2008; as of Oct 2026 [1]
Units
Permanently based units belong to the airfield; rotational and temporarily deployed units are there for a period or an operation. Dates are when the sources place each unit there; "as of" is when a source described it as current.
Current
UAE Air Force Fighter Wing: 1st, 2nd and 3rd Shaheen Squadrons [1]
- Service
- United Arab Emirates, air force
- Basing
- Permanently based
- Aircraft
- F-16E/F Desert Falcon
- When
- as of Oct 2026
UAE Air Force 71 and 76 Squadrons [1]
- Service
- United Arab Emirates, air force
- Basing
- Permanently based
- Aircraft
- Mirage 2000-9
- When
- as of Oct 2026
380th Air Expeditionary Wing, with expeditionary fighter, reconnaissance, tanker and airborne control squadrons [1]
- Service
- United States, air force
- Basing
- Not stated in the sources
- Aircraft
- F-15C, F-15E, F-22A, F-35A, U-2S, KC-10A, E-3 Sentry, RQ-4 Global Hawk
- When
- since Jan 2002; as of Oct 2026
1st Battalion, 43rd Air Defense Artillery Regiment, with Patriot missiles [1]
- Service
- United States, army
- Basing
- Not stated in the sources
- When
- as of Oct 2026
Escadron de Chasse 1/7 Provence [1]
- Service
- France, air force
- Basing
- Not stated in the sources
- Aircraft
- Rafale
- When
- since Jun 2016; as of Oct 2026
Earlier
Escadron de Chasse 1/2 Cigognes, then 3/30 Lorraine [1]
- Service
- France, air force
- Basing
- Not stated in the sources
- Aircraft
- Mirage 2000-5F, Rafale
- When
- 2008–2016
Runways and facilities
The sources do not date these figures. Facilities not listed here are not documented in the sources cited, which does not mean the airfield lacks them.
| Runway | Length | Width | Surface |
|---|---|---|---|
| 13L/31R [1] [2]3,661 m | 12,012 ft (3,661 m) | 150 ft (46 m) | asphalt |
| 13R/31L [1] [2]3,661 m | 12,012 ft (3,661 m) | 150 ft (46 m) | asphalt |
- Arresting gear
- None documented in the sources cited
- Navaids
- None documented in the sources cited
Figure 1 — Airfield map of Al Dhafra Air Base (to scale)
- Runway
- Taxiway
- Apron
- Hangar or terminal
- Helipad
- Airfield boundary
Runways, taxiways, aprons and buildings inside the airfield boundary, true north up, drawn from OpenStreetMap data retrieved 2026-10-28. Widths come from the map data or, where it gives none, a typical 45 m runway and 18 m taxiway. Map data © OpenStreetMap contributors, available under the ODbL 1.0. Community-mapped, not an official aerodrome chart, and not for navigation.
Sim maps
Represented in: DCS: Persian Gulf
DCS: Persian Gulf DCS World · Present day
Represented as “Al Dhafra AFB” · checked 2026-10-28 [3]
Only the maps marked represented or confirmed absent have been checked. Any other map may or may not represent this airfield.
Other maps in Middle East, not yet checked for this airfield, which may lie outside them: DCS: Syria, DCS: Sinai, DCS: Iraq, DCS: Iraq North, Falcon BMS: Israel.
Role today
Al Dhafra is a United Arab Emirates Air Force base south of Abu Dhabi and the headquarters of its Western Air Command. [1] Its Fighter Wing flies F-16E/F Desert Falcons with three Shaheen squadrons and Mirage 2000-9s with 71 and 76 Squadrons. [1]
It is also a major base for foreign air forces. The US Air Force’s 380th Air Expeditionary Wing has been there since January 2002, flying reconnaissance, airborne command and control, aerial refuelling and fighter missions for the campaign against the Islamic State and earlier for NATO operations in Afghanistan. [1] A US Army Patriot battalion defends it. [1] France opened its own settlement in the north-west corner in September 2008, and since June 2016 Escadron de Chasse 1/7 Provence has flown Rafales from it. [1]
History
The base was built in 1983. [1] US forces have been there since the early 1990s, but the US Air Force only acknowledged it officially in August 2017. [1] The 380th wing has flown F-15C/Es, F-22As, KC-10As, E-3 Sentries, U-2Ss and Global Hawks, and the first US F-35As deployed to the Middle East arrived there in April 2019. [1]
In January 2022 the Houthis fired missiles at the base: an Emirati THAAD battery intercepted a medium-range ballistic missile on 17 January, the system’s first known combat use, and Patriots destroyed two more on 24 January. [1] A missile hit the base during the 2026 Iran war and caused damage. [1]
The airfield
Two parallel asphalt runways, 13L/31R and 13R/31L, each 3,661 m long. [1]
Sources
- Al Dhafra Air Base. Wikipedia (secondary source). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Dhafra_Air_Base (accessed 2026-10-28). History, the UAE, US and French units, and the 2022 and 2026 attacks.
- Airport and runway data, OMAM. OurAirports open data (public domain, community-maintained). https://davidmegginson.github.io/ourairports-data/airports.csv (accessed 2026-10-28). Rows for OMAM in airports.csv and runways.csv: position, elevation and the two runways.
- dcs-world-schema reference data: Persian Gulf airbases (Al Dhafra AFB.json). dcs-world-schema, open-source data extracted by running DCS World 2.9.30.28536. https://github.com/YoloWingPixie/dcs-world-schema/blob/c3091e6c08fb8167e26145d0e33c10e4140c6fe7/dcs-world-reference/latest/airbases/PersianGulf/Al%20Dhafra%20AFB.json (accessed 2026-10-28). With its beacon and navaid files, as tabled on the DCS: Persian Gulf map page.
Wikipedia articles are secondary sources and can change; they are cited with the date they were read. FAA airport data and diagrams are official but are reissued every 28 or 56 days; each is cited with the edition read. pydcs mirrors the DCS terrain data at the commit linked.